In the garden the Camellia 'J C Williams' will be well out for Christmas. Camellia 'Dr Burnside' also shows up nicely here in December. The game here on Christmas day is to see how many different camellias in flower can be pinched for the house to brighten up the day. A good way of calming over excited children.

We have spent a great deal of time re-staking recently planted trees and shrubs blown about in the gales. Where branches or leading shoots have been damaged some gentle pruning and reshaping will be needed. If the ground is not too waterlogged or frozen December is not at all a bad time to plant trees. Here we survived the worst of the drought damage because we planted a large new area in mid December last year. The roots had time to establish properly before the new spring growth emerged and casualties were minimal.